Monsoon washes away Alibris Holdings

By Bill BriggsSenior Editor

Monsoon Commerce Solutions is the new name for Alibris Holdings.

Alibris Holdings Inc., parent of online book marketplace Alibris.com, has been renamed. Now Monsoon Commerce Solutions Inc., the new name reflects a new organizational focus on technology that aims to help its participating sellers, says Brian Elliott, CEO.

“We provide tools and services that help our global network of independent sellers and leading retailers grow their businesses online; we will drive over $450 million in sales to over 15,000 participating sellers this year,” Elliott says. “On the heels of the successful merger of Monsoon with Alibris, we’re excited to launch a new corporate identity and organization that better represent the breadth of our customer base and demonstrate our commitment to help our sellers and retail partners grow their businesses.”

In February, Alibris Inc., No. 116 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, announced the purchase of Monsoon Inc., which provides desktop software enabling sellers to list and sell on a variety of marketplaces, including Amazon, eBay and Alibris. In addition to its bookseller marketplace, Alibris.com—which offers a venue for sellers of new and used books, CDs and DVDs—Alibris provides the technology that allows Barnes and Noble and others to provide online marketplaces where other booksellers can offer products for sale.

Monsoon Commerce Solutions has aligned the resources from Alibris and Monsoon to address the needs of its three customer groups: retailers, sellers, and buyers, the company says.

The new Marketplace Services unit provides white-label marketplace applications to retailers such as Borders Direct (No. 194), Indigo Books & Music (No. 161), Chegg, a textbook sales and rental merchant, and Waterstone’s, a U.K. bookseller. The Marketplace Services group has more than two dozen partners, the company says. The unit is designed to enable partners to sell all or any subset of the 120 million books, movies, video games and music items offered through the Alibris and Monsoon seller networks.

The unit offers integrated web services, partner-branded hosted web stores, bulk purchasing tools and customized integration packages. “As more retailers expand online, we help them grow by leveraging the infrastructure and experience we’ve built over the past decade,” Elliott says.

The new Selling Solutions segment is designed to unite the Alibris Seller Hub and Monsoon Works capabilities, providing sellers with technology for selling across marketplaces such as Amazon.com Inc., Buy.com Inc., eBay Inc. and others. The unit provides product pricing and market analysis designed to give sellers an opportunity to grow and compete more effectively and profitably online, the company says.

The new Alibris Retail segment links consumers with independent sellers of books, music, movies and related products. Through its core marketplace Alibris.com and its dedicated U.K. and library marketplaces Alibris.co.uk and Library.Alibris.com, Alibris Retail is designed to deliver a broad product selection through its worldwide network of booksellers, textbook sellers, self-published authors and other merchants.

“This is a dynamic time in our company’s history and an exciting time to be supporting sellers and retailers online,” Elliott says. “With online retail leading overall retail growth, marketplace functionality is a critical channel that brings greater selection and lower-priced alternatives to buyers everywhere.”